Under a bright spring sky, Bob Siegel excitedly led a group on a hike at the Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve ('Ootchamin 'Ooyakma), hiking for nearly two hours among verdant chaparral paths, past the roar of the cascading Searsville Dam, and into the quiet hush of a redwood grove.Along the way, Siegel carefully lifted logs to look for snakes, frogs, and salamanders. He explained the different types of lichens on trees,…
The United Kingdom is home to one of the largest capital markets in the world and provides liquidity to a range of national and multinational companies. It continues to serve as a hub for export services as well as technology and business process innovation, with a flourishing private capital market. Yet negative narratives about the dynamics of UK capital markets persist, with a consensus that UK companies are undervalued compared with…
The global quality-of-life (QoL) market is expanding beyond its traditional roots in health and life sciences to become a strategic priority for all sectors, including real estate, technology, and consumer-facing industries. Executives prioritizing QoL estimate that related offerings could represent 9 to 15 percent of annual sector revenues over the next decade, potentially amounting to $6.7 trillion to $11.2 trillion in market growth by 2034. What’s more, investment in QoL-related…
Growth in the generative AI era looks like a classic case of “two steps forward, one step back.” As companies come to grips with the unique complexities of gen AI, initial progress leads to reversals and redos, in some cases threatening to stop development altogether.There are many sources of frustration and delay, from a lack of sufficient talent to ongoing data quality issues. But our experience working closely with more…
Efstathiou, Emeritus Professor of Astrophysics (1909) at Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy, shares the prize with Professor John Richard Bond from the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics and the University of Toronto.They were recognised for their pioneering research in cosmology, in particular for their studies of fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background. Their predictions have been verified by an armada of ground-, balloon- and space-based instruments, leading to precise determinations of…
In this season finale, we do something a little different. Instead of featuring an outside guest, we bring you behind the scenes—with the voices and minds who help design and deliver the very work this podcast explores. Dr. Heidi Brooks is joined by her colleagues David Tate and Stacey Casamassima for a candid, deeply human conversation that essentially doubles as a real team meeting. This is the team that teaches…
In the “Research Matters” series, we visit labs across campus to hear directly from Stanford scientists about what they’re working on, how it could advance human health and well-being, and why universities are critical players in the nation’s innovation ecosystem. The following are the researchers’ own words, edited and condensed for clarity. When I was 30, I began forgetting my friends’ names, calling them the wrong ones. Soon after, I…
Russia’s strategy has always been aimed at ensuring its own freedom of choice, but not at including other nations in the orbit of its own value concepts. An exception in this regard was the Soviet period of Russian history, but its end brought us back to the fundamental principles of foreign policy culture, which has absolutely no place for messianism, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Timofei Bordachev. The most important…
The purpose of Bank Overground is to share our internal analysis. Each bite-sized post summarises a piece of analysis that supported a policy or operational decision.
Quick Hits On June 4, 2025, President Trump issued a proclamation imposing a full restriction on the entry of foreign nationals from 12 countries and a partial restriction on 7 countries, citing national security and public safety concerns. The order, effective June 9, 2025, imposes travel bans and enhanced screening measures on nations that the proclamation claims have inadequate identity management and information-sharing practices, with a stated goal of preventing…
Leaders worldwide are moving fast to deploy AI at scale. But scaling AI means more data centers—and data centers consume vast quantities of energy. On this episode of The McKinsey Podcast, McKinsey’s Jesse Noffsinger and Pankaj Sachdeva speak with Global Editorial Director Lucia Rahilly about what needs to happen to build new, bigger data centers quickly, as well as to sate these data centers’ growing hunger for power.The McKinsey Podcast is cohosted…
At the same time, the US paused the introduction of new sanctions against Russia. In the EU, the approach of the American administration caused understandable indignation, aggravated by Trump’s trade war “with the whole world” and public criticism of democracy in Europe. Demonstrating the independence of its course has apparently become a matter of principle for Brussels. In addition, the usual dissenters – Hungary and Slovakia – were againg expressing…
Tech debt and complex tech migrations have become major obstacles to successful digital transformations. These challenges stem from the fact that many organizations built their technology infrastructure on legacy systems from a different era. This prevents companies from adopting new technologies that would enable them to respond to fast-changing market trends and customer expectations. To overcome these limitations, many organizations are adopting composable tech stacks—a modern approach to building technology…
The Self-Driving Truck Startup That Siphoned Trade Secrets to Chinese Companiesby Heather Somervillevia Wall Street Journal on May 26, 2025 China’s New Private Economy Promotion Law: Good Intentions Meet Weak Government Accountabilityby Jamie P. Horsleyvia NPC Observer on May 22, 2025 China’s First Law to Promote Private Enterprise: What Does It Mean?by Catherine Tai and Andrew Wilsonvia The Diplomat on May 19, 2025 New Guidelines for Implementing China’s Anti-Foreign Sanctions…
Quick Hits Starting June 19, 2025, employees in Ontario with at least thirteen consecutive weeks of employment will be entitled to an unpaid leave of absence for up to twenty-seven weeks in a fifty-two-week period for serious medical conditions certified by a qualified health practitioner. Effective July 1, 2025, Ontario employers would be required under the amended law to provide new employees with specific employment information in writing before their…
JPMorganChase is a global financial institution with $4 trillion in assets. With over 300,000 employees, the firm has long focused on collecting and leveraging data to better serve its millions of customers and clients. But in 2023, JPMorganChase embarked on a new data transformation journey. McKinsey Senior Partner Kevin Buehler recently sat down with Mark Birkhead, firmwide chief data officer, to hear more about how the firm is leveraging its…
This collaboration is a brilliant example of how the effectiveness of conservation interventions can be assessed quantitatively, even in challenging and complex situations, and how important the participation of on-the-ground practitioners is in initiating, and interpreting, such research.Professor E.J. Milner-Gulland, Department of Biology, University of OxfordThe study analysed data from 11 reserves in the Greater Kruger region of South Africa between 2017 and 2023. This landscape is a critical global…
On June 5, the Valdai Club in Moscow hosted a discussion on the energy policy of the Donald Trump administration. Moderated by Anton Bespalov, the session explored the potential domestic and international implications of the new US president’s energy agenda, which seeks to revise the “green deal.” Konstantin Simonov, CEO of the National Energy Security Fund and head of the political science department at the Financial University under the Government of…
This commentary originally appeared in Fortune. The views expressed are the authors’ own. What do the names H. Ross Perot, Lee Iacocca, Bob Iger, Mark Cuban, Mike Bloomberg, Carly Fiorina, Doug Bergum, Andrew Yang, Tom Styer, Herman Cain, and Howard Schultz all have in common? First, they are prominent businesspeople who have either run for office or considered a presidential candidacy. And second, not one of them is JPMorgan Chase…
Trump is not lying in his decree, talking about the “historical role of the coal industry in the United States.” Indeed, coal once accounted for more than half of the country’s electricity production. However, the newly elected billionaire president is being disingenuous when he points to its current status, since in 2023 coal’s share has fallen to 16% compared to 45% in 2010. The current state of many coal plants…
Quick Hits Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs recently signed Executive Order 2025-09 to enhance worker safety amid rising summer temperatures. The Industrial Commission of Arizona’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health will establish a Workplace Heat Safety Task Force to draft guidelines by the end of 2025. The new guidelines, set to be completed by December 31, 2025, will provide detailed, industry-specific recommendations for managing heat risks in the workplace. Executive…
For businesses to compete effectively and create value, they need to be fast, flexible, and focused on the customer. This has put technology center stage at many businesses and heralds the new dawn of the tech officer as a strategic partner to the business. But what business users and customers see in technology, argues Deb Hall Lefevre, CTO for Starbucks Coffee Company, is often not what matters most in the…
India’s $580 billion to $650 billion agriculture sector is at a strategic juncture. A combination of external tailwinds and internal momentum—driven by factors ranging from structural reforms to digital and technological innovation—has propelled India to emerge as one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing agricultural economies. As agricultural supply chains become increasingly interconnected, India’s scale as an agricultural producer and exporter positions it as a critical player in the shifting…
Quick Hits The Trump administration’s budget proposal seeks to eliminate the OFCCP and transfer enforcement responsibilities for veterans and disability protections to other agencies. Amid the administration’s new labor policies, the DOL has launched an opinion letter program to provide clear guidance on federal labor laws to employers and workers. On May 30, 2025, the DOL released its budget justification for the fiscal year (FY) 2026 federal budget, in which…
The healthcare ecosystem is highly complex, often leaving patients frustrated with their experiences and sometimes unable to access the care they need when they need it. So what can be done? In the latest episode of the McKinsey on Healthcare podcast, senior partner Drew Ungerman, global leader of McKinsey’s social, healthcare, and public sector entities work and global coleader of the McKinsey Health Institute, shares his thoughts on the intersection…
New York is the birthplace of gridlock—of the word “gridlock,” that is, which emerged in the Big Apple in the 1970s. Now, one solution to gridlock is charging vehicles to enter the city center, especially during business hours. Fewer cars, less noise, faster deliveries, less pollution. You may know the solution by the name “congestion pricing.” It’s rooted in economic theory, and there are real-world examples of it working. London,…
On June 4, the Valdai Club in Moscow hosted a discussion on Russia-Pakistan cooperation and the situation in South Asia. Moderator Anton Bespalov called Pakistan one of the most important countries in Eurasia, emphasizing that Russian-Pakistani relations have a long history and have been developing steadily in recent decades, although they still have untapped potential. At the same time, Russia is very concerned about the creeping confrontation between Pakistan and…
Unemployment: the price of stability? Morocco is steeped in a culture of stability which, looking beyond recent events and shocks, seems to be rooted in an older DNA probably related to the country’s political structure and attachment to monarchy. However, as the economy slows, it has become legitimate to wonder whether this attachment to stability – a mark of trust for investors – has in some ways gradually become an…
Machine learning models have seeped into the fabric of our lives, from curating playlists to explaining hard concepts in a few seconds. Beyond convenience, state-of-the-art algorithms are finding their way into modern-day medicine as a powerful potential tool. In one such advance, published June 3 in Cell Systems, Stanford researchers are using machine learning to improve the efficacy and safety of targeted cell and gene therapies by potentially using our…
Some Washington healthcare employers will be subject to new requirements for meal and rest breaks starting next year. Moving forward, under amended RCW 49.12.480, there are new hoops these employers must jump through in order to secure waivers for certain meal and rest break requirements, which means updates to handbook policies and the waiver form. Under the current law, non-exempt hospital employees who are directly involved in patient care or…
Canada is currently facing an erratic and expansive trade disruption with its closest trading partner. The first executive order signed by the President of the United States on Feb. 1, 2025, set out a blanket tariff rate of 10 per cent on all imports from Mexico and Canada. The President has since imposed higher rates on certain goods, including a 25 per cent rate on non-CUSMA compliant Canadian vehicles and…
Generative AI is reshaping society much like Gutenberg’s printing press once did. The printing press democratised knowledge, shifting power from the literate few – primarily monks and the elite – to the masses. Today, GenAI is democratising capability, enabling people and organisations to accomplish tasks previously reserved for experts. Yet, as with every technological revolution, the benefits won't be distributed evenly.The history of technological advancement reveals a consistent pattern: Raw…
The research team, led by the University of Cambridge, used the GPT-4 large language model (LLM) to identify hidden patterns buried in the mountains of scientific literature to identify potential new cancer drugs.To test their approach, the researchers prompted GPT-4 to identify potential new drug combinations that could have a significant impact on a breast cancer cell line commonly used in medical research. They instructed it to avoid standard cancer…
Materials value chains are complex and span the entire globe, and they represent 20 percent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. To reach net-zero targets, the world is undergoing a materials transition in tandem with the ongoing energy and mobility transitions. Organizations around the world are making net-zero and circularity pledges to support this transition and decarbonize. Increasingly, consumers and governments are championing regulations and policies that promote a circular…
Quick Hits The New York Retail Worker Safety Act took effect June 2, 2025, and requires compliance with workplace violence prevention policies and training. The New York State Department of Labor (NYSDOL) released guidance and model templates to help employers comply with the Retail Worker Safety Act. Employees can report violations of the Retail Worker Safety Act through an online complaint form provided by the NYSDOL. NYSDOL Guidance The NYSDOL’s…
L’accès à la justice est reconnu comme étant une valeur fondamentale du système de justice canadien. Dans un pays démocratique comme le nôtre, il s’agit notamment d’une condition indispensable à la confiance du public envers notre système judiciaire. De nos jours, l’accès à la justice est même devenu un enjeu parmi les plus pressants et plusieurs institutions œuvrent activement à en faire la promotion à travers divers programmes et initiatives.…
What’s the best way for a company to talk about a price increase caused by something outside their control? When prices have to go up because of something like a government tariff or a global supply issue, it’s important that customers understand why. People are much more accepting of price changes when they believe the reason is fair and unavoidable. So instead of just saying, “Our prices are increasing,” it…
It’s easy for a start-up culture to survive in a new corporate venture that comprises just a handful of like-minded people. But when corporate ventures grow to hundreds or even thousands of people, the culture can break down. To avoid this outcome, the venture’s leaders can systematically build and maintain a healthy culture that takes the unique corporate context into account. The cost of not doing so can be high.…
The new findings could help complement research complexes such as the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the largest and highest-energy particle accelerator in the world.‘One of the great hopes for particle colliders like the Large Hadron Collider is that it will generate dark matter particles, but we haven't seen any evidence yet,’ said study co-author Professor Joseph Silk, a researcher at the University of Oxford and an astrophysics professor at…
As states compete to become the preferred jurisdiction for incorporation, Texas has taken a bold step with significant amendments to its Texas Business Organizations Code. Following Delaware’s recent pro-management reforms—prompted by the “DExit” movement criticizing its courts as unfriendly to business— on May 14, 2025 and May 19, 2025, the State of Texas adopted amendments to its Texas Business Organization Code (via Senate Bill 29 and Senate Bill 1057, respectively)…